Preemptive strikes stop MILF attempt to block Cotabato-GenSan Highway

COTABATO CITY — Soldiers simultaneously launched yesterday two separate pre-emptive strikes, promptly thwarting an attempt by Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels to block a secluded stretch of the Cotabato-Gen. Santos City Highway in Maguindanao and from nearly plundering a farming community in Kabacan, North Cotabato.

Army Major Julieto Ando, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said they have been receiving feedback from local officials and Muslim religious leaders in the two provinces that 31 MILF rebels were killed in the two pre-emptive attacks, carried out with the help of the Tactical Operations Group 12, a unit in Central Mindanao of the Philippine Air Force.

Ando said the first offensive was carried out when Muslim farmers spotted some 100 MILF rebels in Barangay Tubaran in Datu Odin Sinsuat town in Maguindanao, marching toward a strategic hill along a portion of the Cotabato-Gen. Santos Highway.

Combatants of the Army’s 57th Infantry Battalion, after having been informed by farmers on the presence of the MILF rebels in their community, counter-attacked, precipitating a two-hour firefight.

So intense were the skirmishes that the soldiers have to use MG-520 attack helicopters and the PAF’s improvised Layang-Layang bombers to pound the advancing rebels until they were forced to retreat to the nearby hinterland border of Datu Odin Sinsuat and North Upi town, also in Maguindanao.

Ando said pursuing soldiers found several live anti-tank B-40 rockets, 40 MM grenade projectiles and assorted ammunition for assault rifles on the escape route of the rebels.

"There were heavy stains of blood on their escape routes too. It was enough indication that they have indeed suffered heavy casualties," Ando said.

The hostilities in Datu Odin Sinsuat town, now far away from the command headquarters of the 6th ID in nearby Awang District here, was followed by a two-hour fierce gunbattle in Barangay Pisan, a secluded community in Kabacan, North Cotabato.

The hostilities in Barangay Pisan erupted when some 30 MILF guerillas, led by Abdilah Matitik, a known henchman of the front’s reclusive chieftain, Hashim Salamat, tried to encircle a farming village in the area to collect food and "protection money" from local farmers.

"The rebels did not know that Muslim farmers there have already informed the soldiers and militiamen of their coming so a strong contingent, back by armed Muslim farmers, managed to put up ambush positions in the surroundings of Barangay Pisan one day before they arrived to collect food and money from the villagers," Ando said.

Ando said 10 rebels were killed when the soldiers, militiamen and armed villagers positioned in four strategic spots in the barangay and opened fire on the approaching MILF guerillas, forcing them to scamper toward different directions, leaving behind a shoulder-fired rocket launcher and assorted ammunition as they fled in haste.

A militiaman named Noli Sabado was wounded in the ensuing skirmishes, according to Ando.